Xenophobia Britannica? Anti-immigrant attitudes in the UK are among the strongest in Europe

The vote for Brexit took place. I had hoped that this would have been the end of the obsession
with immigration. Brexit would allow the UK to ‘take back control’ of
its immigration policy, thereby nullifying the need for politicians to
talk about it on an almost daily basis. However, in fact the reverse is happening. Having decided to leave the EU, the vote
is increasingly interpreted as a call to end immigration almost
entirely and, furthermore, it is discussed even more often and more
negatively than before the referendum.

Instead of just imposing immigration controls if the government
wishes to do so, we now hear a flurry of xenophobic policy proposals
which are ironically unlikely to have any noticeable effect on
immigration flows. There were suggestions that companies would be ‘named
and shamed’ for hiring foreigners. Other ideas included preventing the
government from seeking advice from non-UK citizens about Brexit related
matters, presumably for ‘security’ reasons. Immigrants should not, we
are told, “take jobs British people could do”.

These proposals are
economically illiterate as they implicitly accept the lump of labour
fallacy that there is a fixed quantity of jobs in the economy. They are
also clearly nationalist insofar as they posit work should be shared
first and foremost among ‘deserving’ natives, that we must identify and
count foreigners, and that both companies and the government should not
rely on foreigners to advise or work for them, at least in some
instances. The question remains, however, whether these policy proposals
and this obsession with immigration represent the preferences of the
wider population? Or put differently, is it the case that the UK is
noticeably more sceptical of immigration than other European countries?

To investigate this question, I turned to the survey data available
from the European Social Survey; without a doubt one of the best
cross-national academic surveys available. The 7th wave of
the ESS was carried out in 2014 and covers 20 countries of western and
eastern Europe (one is not an EU member: Switzerland). I analysed the
responses to the available questions on immigration. For each question, I
then ranked countries according to their responses as a rough indicator
of where the UK sits in Europe. Obviously, a more complex analysis
could be – and should be – carried out, but the following discussion
gives us a first glance at the magnitude of the anti-immigration
sentiment in the UK.

Ethno-nationalism, racism and multiculturalism

Concerns about immigration do not seem to be primarily driven by
ethnonationalism, i.e. a conception of the nation being premised on a
certain ethnicity and/or religion. Or put differently: these questions
are not where the UK ranks worst.

Do people think “it is important for immigrants to be white”?

In the UK 1.4 percent of respondents thought it was ‘extremely
important’ for someone to be white in deciding whether someone born,
brought up and living outside the country should be able to come and
live here. It is difficult to assess in and of itself whether this is
high, but we can say that this is the 10th highest response (Hungary scores highest with 13.1 percent of respondents believing this is extremely important).

This only captures those respondents that selected 10 on a 10 points
scale ranging from 0 ‘extremely unimportant’ to 10 ‘extremely
important’. We can broaden the net by adding all those that selected 6
to 10: 7.7 percent in the UK did so, which again ranks them 10th, compared to more than 40 percent in Hungary and Lithuania (the two countries with the highest two percentages).

Do people “want to allow Muslims to come and live here”?

Overall, 17.3 percent of UK respondents answered ‘allow none’ to the
question: how many Muslims should be allowed to come and live in one’s
country? This is a very high percentage, but it still ranks the UK 13th with
the top 2 countries (the Czech Republic and Hungary) having more than
55 percent of respondents choosing none. As much as 13 percent in the UK
chose to ‘allow many to come and live here’ and 42 percent chose ‘allow
some’ while 27 percent chose ‘allow a few’.

The importance of customs and traditions

Overall, 12.1 percent of respondents in the UK ‘strongly agree’ it is
better for a country if almost everyone shares the customs and
traditions, which ranks it 10th (the Czech Republic ranked
first with 29.5 percent), while 30.7 percent ‘agree’, 25.5 percent
‘neither agree nor disagree’, 25.9 percent ‘disagree’, and 5.8 percent
‘strongly disagree’.

Close friends from a different race or ethnic group

The following question is clearly not about immigration but may tell
us something about interaction between people: “Do you have any close
friends who are of a different race or ethnic group from most [country]
people? IF YES, is that several or a few?” In the UK, 21.7 percent
responded ‘Yes, several’ which is the 3rd highest share after Sweden and Switzerland, and 36.9 percent said ‘Yes, a few’, but 41.5 percent said ‘none at all’.

Good contact with different race or ethnic group

The UK has ranked 13th worst in terms of the percentage of
respondents who responded that ‘contact with a different race or ethnic
group’ is ‘extremely bad’ (Hungary and the Czech Republic were the two
highest). It does, however, rank high in terms of the percentage that
responded that it was ‘bad’ (as much as 6.3 percent).

Anti-immigration and negative perceptions of immigrants

Anti-immigration and negative perceptions of immigrants

As much as 17 percent of respondents in the UK want to ‘allow no’ immigration from poorer European countries (3rd after
Hungary and Lithuania) and 31.9 percent say ‘allow a few’. Only 10.1
percent think we should allow many to come and live in the UK.

We can unpack this further by analysing differences between high and
low skill immigration. Responses are quite different when comparing
whether to allow professionals from poorer countries and whether to
allow unskilled labourers. Only 6 percent of respondents in the UK want
to ‘allow no’ professionals from poorer European countries (11th highest) compared to 35.1 percent for labourers (3rd highest),
and 19.9 percent want to ‘allow a few’ professionals compared to 28.7
percent for labourers.

Policy proposals that want to limit immigration
into the NHS or highly skilled occupations may therefore not have as much popular
support. Questions about the importance of good educational
qualifications for immigration provide consistent answers: 75.5 percent
believe the educational qualifications of immigrants is ‘important’
(which ranks it 5th highest in the sample, after Austria,
Germany, Estonia and Lithuania – the answers are ranked from 0
‘extremely unimportant’ to 10 ‘extremely important’ and I added the
numbers who chose 6 to 10).

The importance of language and skills

Respondents in the UK attached a particularly high importance to
language: 84 percent chose 6 to 10 in response to the question about the
importance of speaking the country’s official language, where 0 is
‘extremely unimportant’ and 10 is ‘extremely important’. This placed the
UK 2nd highest after Austria. As much as 38 percent
responded that language was ‘extremely important’ by choosing
10.Equally, respondents emphasised the importance of skills: 83.3
percent chose 6 to 10 in response to the question of whether work skills
needed in the country is an important aspect of immigration, where 0 is
‘extremely unimportant’ and 10 is ‘extremely important’. This ranked
the UK 2nd highest among countries surveyed and 27.2 percent responded that it was ‘extremely important’ by choosing 10.

Concerns about immigration related to the ‘way of life’, jobs, public services and crime

Responses indicate that British citizens think it is important that
immigrants should be committed to society’s ‘way of life’: 85.7 percent
chose a number between 6 and 10, where 0 is ‘extremely unimportant’ and
10 is ‘extremely important’. This ranked the UK 6th highest among the
countries considered in the ESS and 31.2 percent thought it was
‘extremely important’.

But respondents were also concerned about whether
immigrants take jobs away from the country. Respondents could choose
any number between 0 ‘take jobs away’ and 10 ‘create new jobs’: 37.1
percent chose a number between 0 and 4 (those which on balance think
immigrants take jobs away more than they create jobs), while 8.2 percent
chose 0 (definitely think that they take jobs away). This placed the UK
in the 6th highest position.

Moreover, many respondents were convinced that immigrants take out
more than they put in in terms of taxes and public services – contrary
to what the evidence suggests. Indeed, 42.8 percent chose a number
between 0 and 4, where 0 is ‘generally put in less’ and 10 is ‘generally
take out more’. This ranked the UK 6th worst in the countries under
consideration in the ESS.

The ESS also asked respondents: Compared to
people like yourself who were born in [name of a country], how do you
think the government treats those who have recently come to live here
from other countries? 19.7 percent responded ‘much better’ which ranks
the UK 1st highest (followed by Ireland and France) and 26.4% responded
‘a little better’.

Finally, the UK was 7th in terms of the percentage of people that
believe immigrants make the country’s crime problems worse with 53.1%
choosing a number between 0 and 4, where 0 is ‘crime problems made
worse’ and 10 ‘crime problems made better’, and 8.7% chose 10, the most
convinced expression of immigrants making crime worse.

Misperceptions

Overall, there is a strong anti-immigration preference among a
significant part of the population, which is rooted in associations
between immigration and a number of problems including higher crime, way
of life, and insufficient jobs and public services. These associations
clearly helped the Brexit camp and play into the hands of the far right,
which has long promoted these associations. Misperceptions seem to
abound about the effects of immigration.

But even the assessment of the
number of foreigners in the country is widely off the mark for most
people. Indeed, when asked, “out of 100 people how many were born
outside the country?” 3 percent said 60, about 9 percent said 50, about 9
percent said 40, more than 10 percent said 30, and more than 10 percent
said 20, just to give some examples. In reality, a recent House of
Commons library briefing paper placed the percentage of people living in
the UK who were born outside the UK at 13 percent (Hawkins, Oliver (2016) House of Commons, library, briefing paper, migration statistics, Number SN06077, 5 September 2016: page 18). More than 40% of respondents grossly over-estimate the number of immigrants in the country.

The survey data reveals that the UK has among the highest
anti-immigrant survey responses, especially within Western Europe. These
results suggest that recent policy proposals tap into widespread
anti-immigration sentiment, which may, of course, have been created by
the media and political discourse that has been framing the issue so
negatively for a long time now.

At the same time, the problem seems to be not just about whether
immigration should or should not be restricted, and if so how, but more
importantly about how to promote a more facts-based discussion of
immigration. The fact of the matter is that a large part of the
electorate has now wholeheartedly embraced anti-immigration attitudes.

Note 1: Design weights are applied throughout.

Note 2: I use the exact language and wording of the ESS for simplicity.